Obligation-Conflict Resolution

Case 21-7 (2021) · Public Safety, Health, and Welfare: Avoiding Rolling Blackouts

How this case resolved it

No obligation was overridden in this case: the board resolved the apparent tension without defeat, as recorded below.

Resolved without defeat

The board resolved the apparent tension here by setting a duty's boundary (specification) or by finding no genuine conflict on the facts (dissolution), rather than by allowing one obligation to prevail over another.

specification
Analytical conclusion 3: This case illustrates a general prioritization rule embed...
Given that Engineer A's utility consultation surfaced resource planners' concerns about rolling outages, and given that a report confined to solar-project viability or stakeholder carbon goals would have obscured that risk, the board concluded that disclosure obligations necessarily expanded beyond the assignment's original scope, not because public...
What the board concluded
From the Board's conclusions in Case 21-7:
  • Engineer A has an ethical obligation to include information about the utility generation mix and potential rolling blackouts in a report to the organization’s board.
  • Engineer A’s report should also include information about cost of battery storage and the potential consequences of not having battery storage on system reliability relative to public safety, health, and welfare.